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From Sub to Pub 2

Sunday, March 27, 2011

There was a lot of angst in those early days after Joanna offer. From what I’m told, this is pretty standard for writers. Agent offers. Writer shrieks. Celebrates. Writer sits around for a day or two wondering if maybe Agent made a mistake. Picturing Agent rereading manuscript and hating it. Picturing Agent typing up a I’ve-changed-my-mind email and hitting SEND.

But seriously, Joanna was nothing but sweet and kind and patient with me that first week or two (and she still is!). Writers are a special breed, and I think it takes a certain kind of person to deal with us.

Once I accepted her offer, we started talking revisions. She already had a lot of her ed-letter written before we were official, so I didn’t have to wait long. Her ideas were spot-on and I could see a whole new version of Altered taking shape. It would be bigger and better and faster paced. I couldn’t wait to start.

But at the same time, I was terrified. What if I started hacking at the manuscript only to make it worse?

I took a few days to think the notes over. And it helped. After that, the revision didn’t seem so bad. The ideas were clearer. I knew exactly what I needed to fix and add to make the book better.

I was anxious to finish, but Joanna said something early on that stuck with me. This was probably one of the few times I’d be working freely, without a deadline. “So take your time,” she said. And as much as I wanted to submit Altered Now-Now-Now, I took her advice.

I started the revision mid-October and sent it back to her December 3rd. She read and gave the thumbs-up. Since we'd decided to hold off till after the holidays to submit, we took the rest of the month to work on line-edits and Book #2 and #3 synopses.

We officially went out on submission January 18th. And so began the longest days of my life.